Fire Fly
by Storia Crissosa
Summary: Just how deep does denial bury itself into the dankest parts of our subconscience?
1. Five years

The blinds were thrown up away from the classroom windows, allowing the evening light to pour in and cascade itself over desks and chairs, and illuminating everyone's hair like a halo.

"In the graveyard,

in the graveyard."

The class was sitting around the small room, singing Halloween songs. The teacher, a young, naive woman, was sitting on her desk, singing along with them. Her bell earrings were tinkling, almost too softly to hear over the singing, in time with her head nods.

"When the moon,

begins to shine."

Coraline was sitting in the desk closest to the window with her feet propped up against the table top and leaning far back into her chair, balancing on the two back legs, with her arms slung over it's back. She was moving her lips the barest amount; pretending to sing, her eyes half closed as she stared out the window.

"There's a doctor,

a crazy doctor."

This was retarded. What was the point of music class? No one was going on to be the next Britney Spears or anything, thank god. There were better things Coraline was interested in than being stuck in a classroom full of people she didn't like being sung to by a woman who's voice made her want to stab small children with dull, rusted objects, and the only thing separating her from those things was a quarter inch of glass. There was a scarcely used road, aside from for school use, across the court yard; with its nasty yellowing grass, and across from that the forest that wove itself through a good chunk of her Oregon town. The maple trees that it was made of were orange and red at this time of year. The many pointed leaves floated down like flakes in a snow globe where they covered the ground and spread onto the outskirts of the road, flying up in swirls of amber color whenever a car drove through them.

"And his monster,

Frankenstein."

And that was precisely where she saw him, in the same spot that he was at every day at this time. He was standing in the shade of two large trees, yellow leaves falling to the ground in front of him every few moments as he gazed unblinkingly at her. His black and ultra violet white fireman's jacket opened up, revealing a fishnet undershirt, and his black goggles tangled on the top of his head by messy brown hair.

Wybourne.

"Oh my monster,

oh my monster."

He had become skinny over the years since they had been eleven. So much so that whenever he came over Mel cooked extra fatty foods and wouldn't let him leave until he had had at least two helpings. His jeans were baggy and bleach spotted and barely held onto his narrow hips by an old, leather belt that had supposedly been his fathers. He lifted his bone patterned, fingerless gloves to his forehead in a lazy salute.

_Heeey Jonsey. _

Coraline loosened the tie around her neck and held the end of it above her head, lolling her head to the side and sticking her tongue out the side of her mouth. Something deep inside stirred in it's sleep.

_Dying of boredom._

He stood there for a second looking constipated, before grabbing his stomach and doubling over with over dramatic laughter. She couldn't hear him from the classroom but the point was made. Wybie grabbed the tree to his right for support, gaining control of himself, and wiped his index finger under his left eye. Coraline squished her middle finger against the glass.

"Oh my monster,

Frankenstein."

He grinned at her, tilting his head like a puppy caught peeing on the carpet. Coraline loved his grin, it was the staple in every childhood memory she had with him. Too bad if he knew that she would have to kill him. He grinned harder and jerked his thumb over his shoulder towards the west. As he did so throwing one leg over the seat of his motorbike and starting it up.

_See you at my house?_

Coraline crossed her arms, pointed her nose towards the ceiling, and turned the other way.

_You'd be so honored._

She moved her head the smallest amount back in his direction and subtlety opened her left eye a crack. But he was already gone, racing through the forest towards wherever.

"Don't come near me,

Frankenstein."

The song ended, after several verses, and Coraline faced the front of the class again. Mrs. Dingbol was rising from her desk, telling the class to wait until the bell rang. Coraline saw movement out of the corner of her eye and noticed the kid in the desk next to her for the first time. He was looking at her like she just grew a third head and she realized that he had probably been watching her the whole time. Coraline turned back to the window, hoping to see a glimpse of a teenage boy on a black spray painted motorbike riding between the trees.

She almost couldn't hear the sound of the kid's desk scraping slowly across the linoleum away from her.


	2. Three years

Nightmares have a way or effecting the area they haunt. Strange things; like seeing a spider before an attack, or power outages... or fog. The same things that disappear when those nightmares are trapped, and can't get out.

You would think that Cat wouldn't be able to sneak around anymore, now that he didn't have any cover. Coraline couldn't be any more wrong as he jumped up behind her and onto her back, curling himself around her skinny neck. One moment she's walking around the outskirts of the forest along a highway and the next a blur of black fur jumps out at her left eye. You would also think that she would be used to it and wouldn't jump ten feet anymore when he did it. Wrong again. Coraline reached down and picked her book up from the sidewalk, which had landed spine up when Cat attacked her. Coraline lifted the little leather book to her eye level and blew the dirt out from in between the pages before resuming walking down the side of the road and finding her sentence again. As she rounded a bend in the road the trees started thinning out and being replaced by buildings; a toy store with spinning playthings in it's window, a bakery that filled the air around it with the smell of burnt sugar and bread, a book store, an incense shop with its door wide open and the wind chimes hanging from its ceiling tinkling in the cool, October wind. Coraline barely noticed any of it. She was too caught up in the adventures and uncanny occurrences of her book. She took an involuntary turn left at the next corner and began crossing the street, never taking her eyes from her page and managing not to get hit by a car only by sound. Soon enough she was at the foot of a dirt driveway leading up a hill into the woods, it's end hidden by trees. Coraline put her book back into her coat pocket and stepped off the sidewalk and onto the driveway. But the moment her foot touched the dried, weed pocketed path, Cat lept from her shoulders and hit the pavement hissing and spitting before rocketing down the sidewalk away from her and almost running headlong into a couple holding hands.

"Umm.... Okay?", he had been acting psycho for the past two months. Not going anywhere near the Lovat grounds and acting like Wybie didn't exist every time the three of them were together- which was almost never lately because, once again, Cat wouldn't go near anything "Lovat related".

"Dumb Cat".

The climb up the hill wasn't as bad as it had been when she first arrived in town, her legs were older and longer and she no longer had the heart pounding need to run up it so fast that she tripped over herself. Back then you never knew what was watching you from the woods, but now she could enjoy the sunlight filtering through what was left of the rustling orange and brown leaves. Lovat manor came into view as she reached the top and Coraline took a moment to catch her breath. The house was as big as the Pink Palace, with ivy covering a good part of the west side and creeping slowly onto the red oak wrap around porch, complete with an antique white rocking chair. Most of the yard was shaded by a large, bare oak tree with a tire swing hanging from its strongest branch. The driveway led off to the right and ended under a small car port and the front door, which was technically on the side of the house, not the front, was large and old and flanked on both sides by stained glass. Coraline walked across the unraked lawn and stomped up the steps. The brass knocker was heavy and tarnished and made a loud noise that cracked off the bark of the nearby trees.

"Come in!"

Coraline did as she was told and went inside, straight into the living room. She had expected to find him huddled behind a pile of old books, which were in stacks along the walls of the room, or on the old pink couch reading. But he wasn't doing either and it didn't look like he was anywhere else in the antique and dust covered living area.

"Wybie?"

"I'm in here!"

Coraline found Wybie in the kitchen sitting in a chair like a frog and making funny faces at something on the table.

"If you stare at it long enough, it might just move."

"You're a real comedian. Trying to figure something out. Be there in just a minute. "

Fifteen minutes later Coraline was still leaning against the doorway, feeling like an idiot. Curiosity getting the best of her, she took her shoes off, as quietly as possible, and tip toed across the room in her socks up behind him. What she saw made her explode in a fit of giggles so bad that she had to either grip the counter or fall backwards.

"Cookies? You can't figure out _cookies_??"

"I'm a guy. I'm well within my species not to know how to _bake_."

"But it's COOKIES!"

"Water witch."

"Do you want my help or not?"

"Yes ma'am." She could have sworn that she heard him mutter something under his breath the moment she reached for the recipe.

"What was that?"

"You're awesome?"

"Yea, that's _totally_, what you said."

They decided to use the modern day stove, as opposed to the cast iron one, on the pretenses that Wybie _did _want her help and Coraline refused to use it. Theres only so many times a girl can burn herself on something before she knows to stay away from it. An hour and three batches of batter later, because the others were either eaten or thrown across the room World War Two style before they got to the tray, the house was covered in the heavy smell of melting chocolate and deliciousness. Coraline was sitting on the couch in the living room, with her bare feet on the coffee table, and Wybie's head in her lap. She was curling her finger around his dark, amber curls and watching all the different colors it created when the light hit it while he had his eyes almost completely shut and appeared to be half asleep. After the cookies were in and the timer had been set Wybie had dug through a large polished box in the living room, throwing old, sequined cloth and a tambourine over his shoulder, before declaring that he had _found it yesterday and wanted her to listen to it_. The _it _turned out to be one of Grandad Lovat's old records and now the sound of Tony Bennet singing _Come Rain or Come Shine_ was leaking out of the old, brass gramophone that was half hidden behind a barrage of potted fern plants. The room was sunny, almost no shadows could be seen in the light and the scene outside was of the large, gnarled tree and it's tire swing, as Wybie lightly lip sung to to old song. And everything in Coraline's world was just right all of a sudden. But nothing in life stays perfect for long.


	3. Just As Long

Yellow chucks stepped down a hallway flanked on both sides by red lockers and loafers. Poking from them were knee high orange and white striped socks, whereas the other legs in the hallway were wearing modest, white socks folded down neat over their ankles. Farther up showed a khaki skirt with a star sharpied onto the hem and a three layered studded belt threaded through only one belt loop and sagging to the side on the girl's hips. A white button down shirt, untucked of coarse, and two of the top buttons undone against dress code regulations; not enough to show anything but enough to get angry looks from her principal, followed. A loosened, almost half way down to her belly button, navy blue tie with a plastic hair clip holding it's two pieces together folded around her neck. Two textbooks were held by one arm to the girl's hip, large stickers slapped on their fronts, and the other arm holding the strap of a panda bear book bag over her shoulder. And where, on either side of her as she walked to her locker, there were normal hair colors, like blond and brown, hers was dark blue and cut short at the bottoms of her ears. Coraline was approaching a group of the standard girls found at her school, all huddled together into a large ball of girlish... girliness. One of the girls raised her head just as Coraline was about to pass, reminding her of a prairie dog sensing danger, and she whispered something to her friends. They all immediately straightened up and stopped talking, never taking their eyes from her. One of them even had the gall to _smile._ They watched her progress away from them and the moment they thought she was out of earshot, they all collapsed into barely suppressed laughter.

"Harpies."

Coraline got to her locker but was so frustrated that she messed up the combination _three times_ and had to take a deep breath before getting it right. She tossed her books in and slammed the door angrily before everything could avalanche out. She ripped a stick of gum out of her pocket and began chewing angrily as she stomped her way to the front of the school, tossing the foil wrapper to the ground by a trashcan.

_Stupid... retarded, upper lip waxing, stick in her too tight gray skirt, RETARDED, cranky, bitter, old HAG._

She had been one whole minute late to class. ONE! So she had walked in the door and was halfway to her seat when the teacher looked up from his comic book and asked for a pass. She told him that she had no pass. And he told her to go to the principals. Now of coarse, her already being annoyed because Wybie wouldn't answer his phone (which is why she had been late in the first place), she had to tell him in great detail just exactly where _he _could go. And instead of taking it like a man he had to escalate the problem further and phone for the eighty year old, gray haired, bun wearing, smells like old cats, needs to get la- principal. The situation ended in Coraline slouching in a chair in "the woman's" (because that was the most civil thing she had to call her) office with her arms and legs crossed, her left leg over her right knee twitching up and down and having to listen to "the woman" lecture her on how a proper young lady should act. Coraline had just stared at a spot in the wallpaper and scowled through the entire thing, literally having to bite her tongue to prevent from telling the woman where she could put her soap box. She got after school detention, which could have been avoided had she not tried storming out heroically just to discover that the door had been locked. Well Coraline had news for the hag! She wasn't going! HA!

Coraline reached into her shirt and pulled out a stubby, generic looking little cell phone and began speedily typing numbers with her thumb. _One ring, and then another._

"Come on. Pick up, pick up. I know your there you little d-"

"Hey Coral."

"I told you to stop calling me that."

Coraline began staring at the floor, putting one foot slowly in front of the other, toe to heel, as she listened to Wybie stammer on about his day. Riding in the woods. He thought he found a dead body but, dang, it turned out to just be a half buried log and an old football helmet. His bike motor stalled out but he has it fixed now. He's hungry. Again. And he'll be there in a minute. Just hold tight.

Coraline took the door from the girl in front of her and walked out into the sun. Not for the first time she noticed that fresh air is sweetest when your not suppose to be in it. It would take Wybie several minutes to get there, even if he was on his motor bike, which he had stopped bringing with him whenever he came to get her from school. She plopped down beside a trash can. Not with what happened last time.

_Freak._

_Goth little bitch._

_Whats this you have here? Aw. Did baby bring his little bikey?_

The biggest of the group picked the bike up over his head while his buddies were pushing Wybie to one another roughly like a toy, Coraline was yanking at their sleeves as hard as she could but it wasn't doing any help.

_Stop it!_

_Aw, gunna get your girlfriend to fight your battles?_

There was a teacher standing inside the entrance to the school, watching what was happening but doing nothing about it. When she saw Coraline look desperately her way she just looked around like she hadn't seen anything and walked away. And in a split second Wybie's precious bike went sailing over the blacktop and crashed to the hard surface with a crunch and the sound of shattering glass. The guy who's arm Coraline had been tugging on, so hard that she had her foot on his butt to gain leverage, got tired of her and swiped his arm back and hit her across the face. She had gone flying and hit the sidewalk and slid right into the grass. The things she remembered the most were the pain of the skin on her arm being scraped off and the look on Wybie's face as it happened. It was a look of pure rage. A rage that was foreign on his usually calm face. A rage _so_ pure that she was sure, had he had the chance, he would have ripped all their heads off with his bare hands and peed down their necks. Wybie sprung forward and cocked his fist back and for a split second Coraline thought,_ yes! This time he's gunna show those guys just exactly who they've been messing with all these years! _But just as it was going to make contact the football player's massive hand caught Wybie's small, malnourished one and threw him back into the center of their jackass circle.

_What? Daddy never teach you to fight? Woops. Forgot! Daddy's not here! Where's Daddy Why-were-you-born?_

The steam seemed to escape him all at once and he fell in on himself to the ground, his fingers tangled in his hair and his face to the ground in despair. All the fight had been beaten out of him.

_Come on. Leave the baby to cry. _

And she remembered the dejected look on his face as she helped him up by his elbows. One of the knees on his jeans was torn open, blood was collecting on the fabric, and a large bruise colored the spot below his left eye.

_They're right you know, _he had said before dragging his feet over to where his bike lay beaten and broken.

"Jonesy? Jonesy?! CORALINE!"

She looked up with a start into the brown, puppy eyes of her best friend.

"What? Oh, sorry. Hey Wybourne."

"You okay?"

"Yea. I'm fine." she said while she grabbed his outstretched hand and he helped her to her feet.

"You ready to get out of here?"

"I was ready three and a half hours ago. Thanks for _breaking me out _by the way."

"Heh." He rubbed the back of his hunched neck and grinned at her guiltily. "Sorry about that Jonesy. I couldn't hear my phone over the motor and by the time I was able to check my messages I was afraid that you'd already be in class and I didn't want to take the chance of calling you back cuz I didn't want to get you in trouble and-"

"-Wybie! Calm down! It's fine. I survived." she laughed at him.

"So all is forgiven?"

"All was never... not forgiven."

"Ha ha. Nicely done."

"Oh leave me alone." she said nudging him over a little bit with her elbow.

A silence fell over them as they made their way side by side down the walkway leading to the front of the school. The entire area was a sea of uniforms, pony tails, and buzz cuts. And Coraline couldn't shake the feeling that her and Wybie were a unique island in a sea of gray water. A short blond girl almost walked headlong into poor Wybie, who had to step onto the grass to avoid collision. She didn't even turn around to see who it was she almost slammed into, like he wasn't even there, and it caused a deep hollowness to stir in the pit of Coraline's stomach, making her want to vomit.

"People are so rude. If you or I had pulled that on one of _them_ there would have been a scene."

"Just forget about it. It's no big deal. I mean, that girl was like, what, eight?"

"Seventeen!"

For some strange reason this was incredibly funny to her. She was glad to see she wasn't the only one losing her mind because Wybourne was beside her, digging into his stomach with his fingertips and his head thrown back with laughter. Coraline was laughing so hard that it escaped up through her nose. She slapped both hands uselessly over the lower half of her face and looked at Wybie out of the corner of her eye, seeing that he had stopped laughing too. The cease fire was short lived because with just one stray giggle escaping through her entwined fingers they were both doubled over with honking laughter again. Someone shouldered her, _hard_, and almost caused her to drop her bag. She could just barely hear him say something that sounded like_ freak_ under his breath and the two of them immediately sobered up. They were once again walking in silence. The people walking near them were staring and there was a bubble of space around them as they became the untouchables. _God! _They all acted like they couldn't hear them! They were the reason Wybie stopped going to school. There was only so many times you can be stuffed in your locker and be beaten on and have your book bag emptied out in the middle of the hallway before you just _can't take it anymore!_ Only so much ridicule and jokes! Only so much viscousness and the teachers acting like they couldn't see! Hell! There were times that he had had enough and tried fighting back, only for a teacher to _miraculously _regain their sight and send _Wybie _to the office! She could hear their whispering, they almost acted like they wanted them to hear.

_Crazy._

_Weird!_

_Schizophrenic. _

_Stay away._

_No one likes you._

And only so many times someone can hear that a day before they bail out. She caught his gaze and no words were spoken all the way to the parking lot, but in that one glance everything that needed to be said was said. The shaded parking lot was still jam packed, and cars and students were filtering out onto the road. All going in one direction- to the right towards town. Like Coraline and Wybie, the woods going towards the left were a virtual no man's land. And also like Coraline and Wybie, it was an area that most only ventured towards on a dare. People avoid things they don't want to understand. And people in small towns like to gossip. There had even been a rumor going on for a while that Wybie had gotten Coraline pregnant. Imagine the look on her mother's face when she heard _that _little number while she was buying vegetables in town. Rumors eventually die, as did that one. But legends, on the other hand, stick around for generations. Like the legend of La Bande Morte, which was a large area near the school that no one went near. It was cursed. It was evil. It was haunted. It was just plain creepy. Almost everyone in Ashland had an opinion on La Bande Morte. Coraline wasn't exactly sure about the details but the story had something to do with a Native American burial ground (typical). From what she could remember of it, the legend said that an entire tribe was slaughtered by a unit of French soldiers. From Canada... or something. The last time a student went in there, and the only reason Coraline knew this was because there had been an announcement at school the next day saying not to go into the woods because of snakes and wild animals (_blah blah blah)_, and because of (wait for it) all the rumors flying around, the guy had come running out of the woods with a large piss stain on his pants and jumped in the back of his friend's, by then moving, pickup, tripped on the exhaust pipe, and nearly fell back out. And, she took great pleasure in saying this, and did _every_ chance she got, the guy was the same mister Josh Morgan of the Maple Leaf varsity football team who liked to trash people's motor bikes. Coraline could see a group of girls, in the shade of some trees talking, from where her and Wybie stood side by side on the opposite end of the parking lot. One of the girls was watching them. She slowly turned her head, keeping her eyes on them for as long as possible, and said something to her friends. They all looked up and then back down at their friend, giving her a weird look because the spot that the girl had indicated was now empty.

And they were running.

Shafts of light streamed to the lightly wet earth in large ribbons, making the dust in the air shimmer and glow. They were sprinting and weaving between the trees and over large boulders half buried in the ground, laughing and smiling and showing no signs of stopping. Her lungs filled to the brim with the scent of wet leaves and mud and watched as tree trunks whipped past her in slim blurs. They both automatically turned left and after a few minutes her lungs began to burn but she never slowed down. Not while she could still see the back of Wybie's head a bit a head of her. The border into the forbidden place was like a tangible line, and passing through it was like being tossed into a vat of ice cold, viscous water. The sounds of the animals died down, becoming nothing more than soft tweets and the rustling of leaves. It was like all the animals were in mourning. The essence of the forest filled her and she could feel the force behind the legends. Running through the woods like that, surrounded by ancient land, if you opened your mind you could feel where those legends had come from. It was easy to imagine seeing figures darting through the trees with you, there but never getting close, just out of reach. And if you let your imagination wander you could almost see their pelts and ceremonial hair feathers out of the corners of your eyes, their familiars running at their feet and the haunted, grief filled howls of a pack of wolves in your ears. The sun was in just the right spot to cause a halo of light to soften and light up the tree trunks and Wybie's silhouette, who was still running ahead of her. Coraline looked to her right and saw a deer, staring at her unmoving like it was caught in a car's headlights, and when she turned back around Wybie was gone. In a split second the earth dipped out beneath her feet and she was free falling. Shock waves rippled up her legs and into her spine as she hit the tree stump, which she managed not to miss only by shear practice. Wybie was sitting in the leaves in front of her with his head leaned into one of his hands.

"What took you so long?" He grinned at her.

To most, as far as she knew _all _in Ashland, it was a place of great fear and superstition. But to Coraline Jones, La Bande Morte was magic. She towered over Wybie, and he grinned again.

"Come on. Dork." She laughed as she reached down and he grabbed her hands. He was about halfway up, with his feet firmly on the ground, before he unceremoniously released her fingers and let her fall back on her butt.

"Hey!" And he was laughing again as he reached down and picked a twig out of her hair. He leaned back on his heals and offered her his hand, still grinning.

"Oh no. You must think I'm stupid." And she got up by herself and brushed the dirt off the back of her skirt and knees.

In the center of the clearing, strewn with leaves and overgrown with vines and wild lavender, was a stone and cement well, covered with a simple piece of rotting ply wood. And under a tree, covered in vines and half hidden behind wild flowers and cat's tails, was an old robin's egg blue ford pickup rusting away. It's tires gone and it's body being held up only by four cement blocks, which were nearly invisible behind the tall grasses. The board was soggy and had a mushroom growing in one of its corners but with a swift push from her foot it slid off and into the grass. The only fog that she saw nowadays was the natural, light fog that you get everywhere. The thick, spooky stuff that seemed to have a mind of it's own and covered everything in sight that she had seen when she first moved to town, was all but gone. It had disappeared the same night that she locked one of man's greatest nightmares away. For good. The only place that you could find that fog now was at the bottom of the well. Her and Wybie discovered three days after _it _happened that the well from which they had banished the key and severed hand led underground to another well further up hill. The same well that the two of them were now looking down. The hand had somehow managed to crawl all the way to this sister well where they had found it, twitching and spasming. Coraline remembered the horrible shrieking it had made when they blew that horrible hand to pieces with cherry bombs. But the fog stayed. It was one of the only things that scared her. The fear that as long as the fog existed somewhere, so did it's master. Coraline continued to stare down at the slowly churning white fog only for a few moments before joining Wybie in the grass. She realized that it must have scared Wybie too because somehow, every thursday, the same day that _it_ had happened, they came here to celebrate a not so swift victory.

"How much do you keep in that thing?" Wybie asked, balancing his _celebration_, between his lips as he watched Coraline take a small, rectangular package out of her shirt.

"Wouldn't you like to know." She said as she lit up and offered the lighter to Wybie, just to see that his was already lit and smoldering away. "Well, fine then."

Wybie fell lazily over and put his head on her shoulder, where she could feel his hair tickle the bottom of her ear.

"You're my best friend, you know that Coral?"

"I told you to stop calling me that. And yea, I know." She reached over and plucked the cancer from his lips, flicking the ash over the well and putting it back before doing the same to her own. "And that's the way it's gunna stay. Forever."


	4. One Month

"Would you rather…" He paused, watching Coraline squish the top and bottom part of her belly button together in boredom. "Get your belly button pierced or your…" He glanced at the very tops of her breasts showing from her orange tank. "Nips."

"Wybie! Geeze." She pulled the neckline of her shirt up further. "Why do you always have to be such a…_ guy_?"

"I always thought it made sense."

They were sitting in Wise Guy, the defeated pickup in La Bande Morte.

"Niether."

"Come on! That's not fair! You made _me _answer all your dumb questions!" He wined, sitting straight up in his seat.

"Yea, but not everyone has the same sick addiction to getting holes in their skin." She said eyeing the bar through his ear.

"If you would just get _one_ thing pierced your eyes would be opened to the amazing sensations that come with having a mean ass hollow needle forced through layers and layers of your skin." He saw the condescending look on her face. "It's great. Really."

"I have something pierced. Four, actually."

"Lobe piercings don't count! Unless they're gaged."

"Okay. Ew."

"And you got them done at the mall. With a piercing gun." She was offended.

"You got yours done in your bathroom. By a guy named Big Mo."

He gave an exasperated sigh, threw his hands into the air, hit them on the corroding tin roof with a _bang_, and pulled them back down quickly to his chest with something that sounded like "Fak." She reached over and brushed rust dust, trying not to giggle at the simple thought of _rust DUST_, from his hair. And then tried again not to laugh, this time not as successfully, at the faces he was making.

"Fuck shit! Ugh! What?"

"You're the most unusual person I know."

"Ummm… what?" He tilted his head to the side, almost to where his ear touched his shoulder.

"When you fell out of my aunt's tree last year, and broke your leg so bad that the bone was sticking out of your skin, you barely even yelled."

"Yea, well… this hurts!" He stuck two of his knuckles in his mouth. "An yef, Coval. 'Am okah. Fanks fo yeh confern."

"Lol, sorry."

"Or… ARE YOU!" He shouted, followed by a stream of theatrical laughter, and then throwing his hands in the air like a madman. Resulting in him hitting his knuckles again. "Fucking Christ!" And suddenly Coraline couldn't stop herself from laughing.

"You're a meanie!" He gave her puppy eyes and sucked on his knuckles again. His eyes widened and began watering, staring unblinkingly at Coraline leaned against the door with her knee up to her cheek, and tilted his head down. _I'm not falling for it. He's a big boy. We're not going through this. _His bottom lip quivered just ever so slightly. _He can't make me! Don't look into his eyes, girl. Even If they are big and brown and have those little black flecks and… no! Be strong! Nope, no, no! Ah hell! _It was over when he began whimpering softly in the back of his throat.

"Okay. Le'me see."

He slowly pulled his hand from the crook of his neck and extended it toward her. She took the tip of his fingers in hers, being careful of the inflamed skin near his knuckles. They were a bit worse than she thought they would be. There was a flap of skin hanging off his middle finger knuckle, and a cut on his ring finger one that was trickling blood between the two. She sighed, and reached down with her left hand and pulled a _hello kitty _band-aid off her ankle. She pushed down the squeamish part of her, gently put the piece of skin back where it was suppose to be, stuck the band-aid over it, and kissed it better.

"Only the manliest of manly men rock Hello Kitty," he declared, grinning widely from ear to ear.

"Yea, yea you're welcome." She leaned forward and put her elbows on her knees. "You know, you'd think we were getting too old for th- oh no." Wybie was sitting on the edge of the driver's seat, poised like Cat about to attack a fire fly. Her face fell.

"Don't do it Chip." And of course he did. He, quite literally, lept at her. Grabbed her sides, and began to tickle her. Mercilessly. "Sto- MEH! No! I'm begging you! MERCY!-"

"Not gunna save yoouu!" He singsonged.

"-Ack!" She was laughing so hard she couldn't breathe. Her arms and legs were flailing around helplessly and her abdomen was trying to sink further into her seat. Her hand hit the window of her door, her feet kicked the roof, causing loud noises and dust to fall onto their faces and hair. She tried making a mad dash for it and attacked what she thought was the window crank, because the door wouldn't open unless it was from the outside, but instead grabbed a different lever on the side of the seat. There was a loud noise like snapping plastic, and the back of her seat crashed backwards. Coraline's breath was knocked out of her, but he was merciless. Through her torture she could foggily remember their first time hanging out in there. When they had found the well, they had found the truck. The truck had been in bad shape, and they had done nothing to repair it. The entire wall that separated the truck of the bed and the cabin was completely gone, and all that was left of it was a fine line of powdery brown dust. The only thing they had done for old Wise Guy was secure a blue tarp onto the roof and the hatchback with heavy cinderblocks. But that was more for them, to keep the inside dry, not for Wise Guy. They were selfish. And Wybie was still laughing through her peels of hysteria.

"FIRE!" Tears were beading at the corners of her eyes. And of course Wybie was loving it, or at least he was until her feet caught him square in the stomach, lifting his whole weight over her, and vaulted him into the bed of the truck. He rolled a few times until he hit where the blocks were. Stomach down he let his tongue hang limp from his mouth, and pretended to be dead. It didn't take long before he cracked a big grin and began laughing until his body shook. The truck bed was semi-dirty, dirt in the corners and brown, ugly leaves scattered around it. Coraline rolled out of her seat and crawled over to him.

"Just wait," she laughed, "I'm gunna get you back one of these days. Mark my words!"

"And how do you plan on doing that." He said lifting himself onto his elbows.

"Pffftt, like I'm going to tell you." She honestly had no idea. She reached over and picked a helicopter out of his tangled hair and twirled it between her fingers.

"I'm not ticklish. I'm not afraid of heights." He had a secret dream of becoming an acrobat. "I'm not afraid of bugs, especially slugs. Ha. That rhymed. I'm not afraid of odd numbers. Or disgusting food. Clowns. Small spaces excite me. I'm not afraid of dying. Or homework. Maybe I'm a little afraid of being alone." A lot. " The monster under my bed has been gone since I was ten. I'm afraid of rape though. But your not going to rape me." He raised an eyebrow at her contemplating expression. "I would beat you with a string. I'm not afraid of being fat. I keep eating and eating and I just keep getting thinner."

"That might come back to bite you some day." She let the helicopter fall from her hand and she watched as it spiraled, spiraled, spiraled down to the dirty truck floor. She turned over onto her back and crossed her hands over her aching stomach.

"If I ever get stuck speaking in public, I'd either imagine them all with sunglasses or just fart and carry on. And I'm afraid of double chinning in pictures," Coraline only had one ear open to him. She was watching a bead of rain slowly make its way down the blue tarp. She watched it pause at a leaf stuck to the plastic, part around the center and continue on. And when the sun hit it, she arched her back and marveled at the way it sprayed jewels of color onto his face and hair. He smiled as he spoke, and his front teeth sparkled slightly before disappearing behind his lips. And she could see the shadow of a dragon fly behind his head hover, then take off again past the truck.

"But what are you going to do? Grab my face and make me double chin during my wedding photo? You'd be better off throwing spitballs at the back of my head at the altar."

"You'd just try catching them in your mouth."

"Day-em straight!"

"Ha ha! Okay my turn."

"But you still haven't answered mine!"

"I don't care, it's still my turn. Would you rather… be able to fly, or be invincible."

"Fly. Hands down."

That night, Coraline was sitting at her vanity, and her room was completely dark save for her night light sending witches and stars spinning on her walls. She was brushing her hair repetitively with her horse hair brush. It had been her grandmother's, and she didn't like to think about the fact that sixty years ago, she had been brushing her hair in her own vanity. It chilled her, and sometimes she felt as if she could feel thin fingers curl over her own on the handle as she brushed her hair. She had to put the brush down. Coraline could hear her parents in the kitchen doing dishes, and if she left her room Mel's Mom-dar would go off and she'd be roped into doing them instead. So all that was left to do was stare at her dark reflection. Through the light from her lamp creating sharp angles and shadows across her nose and cheek bones, she could make out the features of her face. All the way from her wide, dark eyes to her sharp nose to her thin lips and boney chin. And her two front teeth that were a little too far apart for her liking. Everything about Coraline's thin face and body was grotesque to her. She slammed open her drawer, pulled out a pack of cigarettes, and slammed it shut again just as roughly. She lit one on a candle, stuffed the box in her bra, angrily crossed her legs, and swiveled her chair toward the door, finding that she couldn't look at herself anymore. She felt cheap, because she knew that she was only suppose to use them with Wybie, once a week at the well. But lately she had gotten into the habit.

In Coraline's calmed state, she let her gaze wander over her alcove windows, with their striped seats and blue cushions, and looked over every trinket and memory on the shelves in the corner near her door. The first shelf had her jewelry and music box, along with some candles and a plastic candelabra from Halloween. It had a pile of the earrings that she wore most, her tie and a black and white picture of her parents wedding photo. The second shelf up was packed with stuffed animals and bug samples, shiny green beetles pinned to rice paper behind panes of glass. The next shelf up was her favorite, and most occupied. Running along the top was a string of party lights. It had an orange ticket from the Festival of Leaves taped onto the backboard, a purple stuffed giraffe with beady buttons for eyes, a blue beta fish (named Tobi) in a mason jar, and a picture of her and Wybie, laughing. She was sitting on his lap on a swing, hanging almost upside down and the photo was filled with their teeth and hair. There was a glowing green kissy mark on the upper right hand corner, and Coraline involuntarily rubbed her cheek. She remembered Wybie sitting on the edge of her vanity, while she sat in the chair, and him painting designs on the tabletop with glow in the dark paint. She remembered him looking into the paint thoughtfully, sticking the whole lower half of his face into it, scooping up the picture and kissing the edge girlishly. And then she remembered laughing with her eyes closed, and when she least expected it, having her face grabbed and sloppily kissed under her eye. There was also a snow globe with a penguin inside it, a lei from the school luau, an empty chocolate box, a half drunk can of soda, some body spray, a strip of photo negatives, Wybie's school picture, an assortment of nubby candles, and pushed far to the back in the corner, a dusty frame with a barely recognizable picture of a boy and girl. If you cared enough to wipe away some of the dust with your sleeve you would see a sign from Pontiac Junior High with the words, _CORAL1NE GOOD-BYE! _

Many, many things had changed since the banishment of the Beldam. For one, Mr. Bobinsky had died, from a heart attack of all things, about a year and a half earlier. She still had one of the yellow daffodils pressed between the pages of one of her books from his funeral. As a matter of fact, everyone but the Jones' was gone now. Spink had a stroke shortly after the death of Bobo, and Forcible stayed with her when she was forced into a nursing home. Now there was a nice family that Coraline didn't interact with, complete with an eight year old and a baby, staying in their part of the house. No one had bought Mr. Bobinsky's flat. Something about the smell. Charlie had been fired by his publisher, while Mel had remained under their employment. And Coraline had almost forgotten about her old friends from her old town, when she was her old self. She remembered, as she crossed her eyes and watched the burning red embers at the end of her now short cigarette, the last time she had seen them. When she had taken Wybourne with her for one last, disastrous visit. And then she heard footsteps clomping up the stairs. Her heart nearly leapt into her throat and she almost swallowed what was left of her contraband. She, as quickly as she could, lit a stick of incense with her lighter, threw the lighter down her bra, yanked open a random drawer, put her cigarette out in the corner and threw it to the back, slammed it shut again, threw open one of her windows, flopped onto her bed, and hastily opened up the magazine sitting on it. When her mother appeared in her doorway, Coraline had to struggle not to look out of breath. Mrs. Jones sniffed the air and looked suspicious, but otherwise didn't show any signs of knowing. Which Coraline was fairly certain she did. She loved her mother, and she knew her mother loved her. She could tell in the few times that she fumbled into reaching out to Coraline. Coraline never pushed her into it, and they had an unspoken rule between the two of them. Make it through high school, don't get pregnant, follow curfew, and don't get hooked on drugs. Don't hover, cook dinner every once in a while, don't pester about grades and they'll remain passing, and we can both stay out of each other's way. Coraline felt awkward every time Mel tried acting motherly and thanked her stars it didn't happen often. She loved her in her own way, but she knew that her mother had all the warmth of an empty parking garage. Mel moved silently to her bedroom at the end of the hallway, with little more than a _Goodnight, Coraline._ Her dad fallowed a few minutes later, just when she was getting into the quiz part of her mag. He appeared in her doorway much like Mel had before, but sitting in his squeaky computer chair, pushing himself backwards over the hardwood.

"Hey, pumpkin pants."

"Hey Dad."

"Everything, uh, chill?"

"Pft. Yea, everything's fine."

"Okay, night puddin'."

He wheeled himself out of sight and Coraline could just faintly hear Mel yelling at her dad from down the hall before she threw the magazine to the floor, flopped right side onto her bed and decided that her nightlight was too far away to turn off before nodding to sleep.

"_Honestly, Charlie! Put the chair back in the study. I swear. Sometimes I think our daughter is more mature than you! Jesus!"_


End file.
